500 yards

[Lowe43]

I am shooting a remington 700 7 mm rem mag with Boyd thumb hole stock and a vortex viper scope currently I'm shooting just under 5 " @500 yards off my pack. My question is what is a reasonable group for 500 when planning on hunting animals that far out

 

[Justin Crossley]

If you are keeping them in the kill zone (sounds like you are) 99% of the time, then I would say that's within your range.

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

Might be a rhetorical question but just to double check is that group centered on your intended impact point? If so sounds like a kill.

 

[Lowe43]

Yes it's with in the kill I'd post a pic but not sure how to do that

 

[Lowe43]

Getting the wind right is the harder part I ordered a wind meter so I can judge it better

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

Roger that. I only asked because sometimes folks will report a long range group size on their catch paper, which is useful in knowing what the rifle can do, but fail to mention it was 10" off were they intended it to be. Under 400 the errors in your ballistic cals don't show up much was my experience, 400-700 I needed to make some adjustments to things to get things matched up. I haven't had a chance to go 700+ yet but I imagine that will show further adjustments required. The good news is the more refined you get your long range stuff it just benefits anything shorter and your confidence with shorter stuff grows.

 

[Lowe43]

Yea my range is only 500 yards so at max I'd try 550 I am practicing from prone off my pack and tripod now I'll transition to sitting tripod shooting soon to see what rang is effective. I just want to know my max effective tangent b4 I go because here in south texas 200 yard on whitetail is a far shot lol and those mulies and elk in idaho last season were at the closest 400 yards and I was not prepared to take that shot being I had never practiced. But now I have kenton turret on my vortex scope helps allot I also use the strelok balistics caculator which helped me fine tune my shooting the turet is close but the app tells u exactly how many clicks in elevation and windage

 

[maninthemaze]

Make sure your Kenton turret is set for the elevation you plan on hunting at. It might not matter as much at shorter distances, but once you start getting out there, barometric pressure starts to matter.

I use the CTS stickers on my scope turret. Relatively cheap and easy to change if you swap loads.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

Make sure your Kenton turret is set for the elevation you plan on hunting at. It might not matter as much at shorter distances, but once you start getting out there, barometric pressure starts to matter.

I use the CTS stickers on my scope turret. Relatively cheap and easy to change if you swap loads.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

Ideally with any of the turrets/labels the MOA marks are still retained so you can dial to your current conditions. I have a label on mine with my load at 5500' in moderate weather conditions for quick reference but if weather or altitude is notable off then fall back to the MOA dial.

 

[maninthemaze]

Ideally with any of the turrets/labels the MOA marks are still retained so you can dial to your current conditions. I have a label on mine with my load at 5500' in moderate weather conditions for quick reference but if weather or altitude is notable off then fall back to the MOA dial.

I have mine set that way as well. I have my CTS set for 8000 feet elevation and use the MOA marks and my ballistic app when shooting here in Kentucky.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

 

[Ndbowhunter]

Don't let the cart get too far in front of the horse here though.

Learning how to get into animals not only from a long distance spot and stalk scenario but also to just be with the animals as well is crucial.

On the shooting side 500 is a good distance to practice proficiency. It seems as if you probably have a natural ability to control a trigger and manage recoil. That's huge, now see if you can practice sitting and kneeling type stuff as well. Quickly building a stable platform. We want to build out systemic training errors with the frame of mind that we perform to our lowest level of training.

The other thing is that if we always shoot the center of round or square targets or even rocks we've yet another weak link in our chain of skills.

And lastly if at all possible practice in variable conditions. Animals tend to be shot early and late in the day. Might be a good thing to practice accordingly.

 

[16Bore]

MOA isn't shabby. Wind meter tells you what's going on where you are, not the target.

 

[awaldro7]

My thoughts would be 75% of the distance that you can keep all of the rounds in an 8" circle. And like they said above not an 8" group but within 8" diameter of the point of aim. So if you can hit that at 800 yards reliable with your group then I would hunt up to around 600.